The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-26
THE GUM HABIT.
Accurate Portrait of Victim Of the De-
stroyer.

stroyer.
Burdette, in Brooklyn Eagle.
There is a well-d ressed, intelligent-lookine,
rather pretty woman. She got on the train
away back at Louisiana, Mo. That was nearly
four hours ago. She was chewing lump Oh
''swee' gum when she cot on the car. she mas
been chewing it since. She is working away
at it now. She is child she is forty years, II
she is day. But she wads and crunches and
champs that gum like boy of ten. She talks
all the time, too. Once in a while she hypnen-
ates long word with n vigorous .chaw." she
punctuates her sentences with that gum. She
gives q one-sided. Italio ''chaw" for q comma,
square, 6at-sided smack with the roof or ner
mouth for semicolon, and wher she makes
full stop she deftly losses the wad from one
cheek to the other with her prehenslle
ton que. That womans jaws must be made
of steel. It is msddening to see them In
the full play of talk and ''chaw," but there IS
strange fascination about it. You can't nelp
watching her. although you dread-or posSioIy
pray-to the premonitory symptoms OF lock
jaw. But there is no danger. The lockJaw has
no show; it can't get chance for an opening.
The woman forces the fighting. and her busy
jaws never rest fer second. 1t is painful 10
note the desperate efforts of her companion,
poor. weak. frail man, to get in word once In
he wants TO say, but think he is trying to give
her his dying blessing. There. he is steathliy
putting something into his mouth. L can see
that it is not "gum." l think it is strychnine.
Poor man. he will be happier in few hours.
Either the strychnine will kill him or that
woman will talk herself to death. Women
ride IN the smoking car The habit
may lack some of the disagreeable feat
of tobacco chewing, but 1t IS vastly
more irritating. Because the who chewS
tobacco does stop sometimes. His jaws ache ana
grow tired. and he stops to rest. And sometimes
to breathe And to eat. And to drink But
the woman who chews gum in public stops for
none of these tri1es. She chews right along till
her teeth fall out or by some terrific CONFUSION
of nature act OF Providence she swallows the
gum. Then she wrests another wad from one or
thA obi Idrnn Sfna "
caught up her lost time, and goes ahead the rest
of the day schedule time, with stops for
coal or water. The ''swee gum" habit is a terri
BILE bondage. Its victim loses a certain sense OF
delicacy. She doesn't how wide she opens
her mouth. how many times second. nor how
many people looking at her in amazement,
SORROW and pity. Her little children cry for
swee' gum, but the heartess mother. hardened
by long indulgence in tha terrible habit,
will not divide her guild with her wall
ing babes. II, it sometimes happens.
steady chew for say four five months-ex
hausted nature gives way, and she is compelled
to rest her parayze jaws for five or SIX min
utes, she will not even give her quid TO one OF
the children to keep it warm for her. She has
secret hiding place on the back of a chair, the
head-board of the bede where she pastes 1t.
Sometimes being thus suddenly deprived OF the
long accustomed stmuant, she dies before she
find it again. and her friends discover, all
too late. the cause of her death. dried against
the wall in some dark secret nook. hard as
pebble. Oh, OF America! Men with hui
man hearts, Men with homes TO defend and
rent to pay! Brothers. sons, sorrowing fathers
and heart broken husbands, let US hasten TO the
rescue of sisters, daughters, our wlves
Let wrest the women of this fair land from
wrest the destroyer from the woman, II we have
break her the attempt